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Rest of the week's theatre

A cell of young men, driven by religious fervour, covertly plan a terrorist attack: it’s no wonder the Gunpowder Plot is currently such a hot theatrical topic. After the RSC’s Gunpowder Season, Edward Kemp’s 5/11 examines the unstable political climate surrounding the death of Elizabeth I and the accession of James I, depicting a world of underground extremism, political brutality and explosive danger. A few ruffs hint at historical accuracy, but this play flaunts a deliberately modern sensibility: James’s opulent court flashes punk-rock attitude, thanks to swathes of lurid tartan and Alistair McGowan’s robust turn as the butch, bisexual king, while deadly political operative Sir Robert Cecil (Hugh Ross) has both filing cabinet and Anglepoise lamp. The Catholic conspirators, meanwhile, turn from historical shadows into flesh-and-blood creatures, their flawed humanity especially vivid in Stephen Noonan, as the fanatical Catesby, and Richard O’Callaghan, as the conflicted Jesuit